A Marked Avatar
by Twilight Warrior 1994
Summary: I never wanted to be normal, for the record. So when I saw the dead guy leaning against my locker, I was pretty happy.


**_I love Legend of Korra. I love the House of Night. So I thought why not combine my two loves._**

**_To the haters. I ain't got no time for you. Hateful reviews will be deleted._**

* * *

I never wanted to be normal, for the record. So when I saw the dead guy leaning against my locker, I was pretty happy. Especially because my day so far had sucked rocks.

Maura was talking nonstop, which was no different from any other day, so she didn't notice him. At first. Truth be told, now that I look back on it, I was the only one who noticed him before he spoke, which is just more of the growing pile of evidence that I was not normal for a human.

"But seriously Korra, Bolin didn't get _that _drunk after the game. I don't know why your being such a hard-ass about it."

"Whatever," I said. I had long since perfected letting Maura's unending blathering flow in one ear and out the other, letting just enough information sink in so it would seem like I was paying attention. And then I coughed. For the hundredth time that day. And I don't mean a polite, 'oh I got a little tickle in my throat' cough, I mean six degrees of phlegm was gathered up in my throat and wanted to come out and play.

I'd felt like crap since getting up that morning. Mr. Braum, the more-than-a-little-nuts AP biology teacher at my school, commented that I had the Teenage plague.

My hope for it was that it would get me out of my calculus test tomorrow.

"Korra, are you listening? He only had, like, four- I dunno- maybe six beers, not counting the three shots. Plus, it's besides the point. He probably wouldn't have had hardly any if you hadn't left almost right after game."

Yet more evidence of my unusualness. I hadn't cared to go to that after party. Wouldn't of gone to that game if Bolin hadn't busted out his puppy dog eyes on me. It's not that I hate sports, or parties, or anything of the like. I'm just never really felt... connected to anyone. Girls hate me for attracting the boys attention, who are usually put-off by my lack of interest. And it's not like anyone can complain about it. I'm polite enough. Sometimes it even feels like my loving, completely and totally supportive parents are on a different page than me. Except my grandmother Katara. We connected. We're on the same page. And that's all I need.

"And, hello, he was celebrating. I mean we beat the Wolfbats!" Maura poked my shoulder and put her face inches from mine. "Hello, Korra! Your boyfriend-"

"He's not my boyfriend." Was I a little quick? Maybe. But, hey Bolin wasn't. And it wasn't for a lack of effort on his part.

"Whatever! Bolin's the quarterback, so duh, he gonna celebrate. It's been, what, a million years since the Fire Ferrets beat the Wolfbats?"

"Twelve." Being great at math isn't one of my better qualities, but Maura makes me look like Steven Hawking.

"_Whatever! _Point is, he was happy. Cut him some slack."

"Point is he got drunk for the fifth time this week. _'Scuse me_ for not wanting to date a guy whose goal in life has gone from playing college football to chugging an entire six-pack in under ten minutes. Besides, he's gonna get fat from all that beer." I had to pause to cough, taking as deep a breathe as I could when it ended. Not that Maura noticed.

"Ick! Bolin, fat! Not a visual I want."

I choked down another cough. "And kissing him has gotten no different from kissing a full keg."

Maura squished up her face in disgust. "Okay, TMI. To bad he's so hot."

I rolled my eyes, feeling to crappy to even attempt to hide my usual annoyance at her shallowness.

"Your such a bitch when your sick. And you obviously didn't see how lost-puppy like Bolin looked when you ignored him at lunch. He couldn't even..."

Then I saw him. The dead guy. Well, technically he wasn't dead. He just wasn't human. Not anymore. Scientists say one thing, people say another, the end results the same. He was a vampyre and even I hadn't felt the power and darkness that he radiated, there was no way in Hell I could miss his Mark, a sapphire-blue crescent moon in a waning crescent with a series of knot-like tattooing that framed his face like a mask.

He wasn't just a vampyre, he was a Tracker. And he was standing in front of my locker.

_Awesome_ I thought. And then he spoke.

"Korra Aponi! Night has chosen thee; thy death will be thy birth. Night calls to thee; hearken to Her sweet voice. Your destiny awaits you at the House of Night." And then he pointed at me. Pain bloomed in my forehead while Maura opened her mouth and screamed.

* * *

When the light show in front of my eyes ended, I saw the Tracker was kneeling over me. Is it weird to say he was cute? Dark skin, shaggy black hair, and pale brown eyes. Maybe twenties, of course him being a vampyre it was hard to tell.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes. Up you go now." He held out his hand to me, pulling me to my feet. I bent over at the waist, willing the world to right itself, noticing we were alone when it did.

"Where's Maura?" It took him a minute to think. "Oh, was that her name? She hauled ass when you hit the floor. She always that skittish?"

I laughed. This guy couldn't have been much older than me, in vampyre years anyway. "Something funny?", he looked at me with one eyebrow raised. "Nothing important."

"Well we've got to go. Don't bother with that. You won't need it, trust me." I was bending down to pick up my schoolbag, which I'd dropped in my little faint. He put one arm around my shoulders, his hand resting on the small of my back, pulling me with him to the exit. "You got a name or what?" Hey, he had his arm around me like I was his woman. I thought it was a fair question.

He looked surprised, like he didn't think it would come up. "Hasook. Hasook Misu." Misu; ripples in the water. So he some Native American in him. I knew it from the shape of his face, but his name confirmed it.

We passed by the bathrooms, and I pulled away. "Do you mind?", I asked, gesturing to the ladies room. Hasook's cheeks became a little darker, but he nodded. I didn't actually need it or anything. What I did need was a moment to think.

There were five stalls. Since it was three-ten, they were all empty, like I figured they'd be. On the wall opposite to them were four sinks, one long mirror stretching over the length of them all. I did it like ripping off a Band-Aid. Figured it was best. I pushed all my hair off my forehead and looked straight into the mirror.

I was a familiar stranger. You know? The person you see in a crowd, and you swear on your mother's grave you know, but really you don't.

The girl in the mirror had my straight, thick, dark-brown hair. She had my dark skin, my high cheekbones and straight nose, gifts from my grandmother's Inuit and my mother's Native-American ancestors. My pale blue eyes, a by-product of my grandmother's half-French heritage, but they'd never been so round and big. Or maybe they had. I don't exactly spend an hour of my life looking at myself in the mirror. The biggest difference now was that there was a dark blue waning crescent outline dead-center above them.

I choked. Sure, being a vampyre would be cool. If I made it that far. Otherwise I'd die a death that was promised to be full of blood and pain.

So the good news was I'd miss calculus tomorrow. The bad was I'd have to move to the House of Night, the private boarding school in the upper section of Republic City, where the next four years would be spent going through freaky and unnamable physical changes. You know, if I didn't die first.

Still, the more I looked, the more the tattoo appealed to me. Mixed with my features it seemed to brand me with something wild, like I belonged to an older time, when the world was bigger and darker.

Life would never be the same. And then my joy came back in full force, while deep in me the blood of my grandmother's people rejoiced.


End file.
